More on Spongebob

The whole Spongebob thing is so ridiculous I almost feel funny talking about it. Two factors make it worth mentioning again, however. First, Traci Parmenter brought it up, and I respect her judgement regarding things-that-turn-out-to-be-important. Second, I get this feeling that, as I've heard Shayna Englin say, we might be frogs in water, so it makes sense to just keep on hopping and squirming.

So, here's my one Spongebob point. It's still all about sex. Values language has been claimed by a relatively narrow, conservative agenda, and that agenda has taken all that could be considered part of the values conversation and reduced it to sexual values alone. We can't let that happen. The values debate is a good one to have, but it must, must include a lot more than questions of sex. Not because sex isn't important. Actually, I think it is. But so are many, many, many other subjects--like poverty, social justice, freedom from fear--that rightly belong in a values debate, and that have been forced out.

America the dispensable

"A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US? they asked. Today the evidence of foreign cooperation to reduce American primacy is everywhere - from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.

It is true that the US remains the only country capable of projecting military power throughout the world. But unipolarity in the military sphere, narrowly defined, is not preventing the rapid development of multipolarity in the geopolitical and economic arenas - far from it. And the other great powers, with the exception of the UK, are content to let the US waste blood and treasure on its doomed attempt at hegemony in the Middle East.
...
Ironically, the US, having won the cold war, is adopting the strategy that led the Soviet Union to lose it: hoping that raw military power will be sufficient to intimidate other great powers alienated by its belligerence. To compound the irony, these other great powers are drafting the blueprints for new international institutions and alliances. That is what the US did during and after the second world war.

But that was a different America, led by wise and constructive statesmen such as Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who wrote of being "present at the creation". The bullying approach of the Bush administration has ensured that the US will not be invited to take part in designing the international architecture of Europe and Asia in the 21st century. This time, the US is absent at the creation."

This from a must-read article by Michael Lind published in the Financial Times on January 25th.

The true legacy of the neo-conservative takeover of Republican foreign policy, supported by the evangelical fervor of the Republican Christian Right - both epitomized in George W. Bush - will be the demise of the United States' role as the preeminent superpower in the world. It's late and I've still got canvass packets to make tonight for the campaign, so I can't take the time right this moment to explain all of the reasons the trends are bad for America, but the implications for our way of life - particularly the assumption among the upwardly mobile middle class (of which me and my family are certainly members) that our children's economic opportunities will be better than our own - are immense and almost entirely negative. I will come back to this when time permits, but in the meantime: thanks, Dubya. Caleb will thank you, too, I'm sure.

Beware SpongeBob

From this morning's Washington Post, I learned of a story I was quite behind the times on, which apparently broke last week. Al Kamen reports that James Dobson (the fearless leader of fundamentalist Christians in our land) has accused SpongeBob Squarepants of--you guessed it--promoting the gay agenda. (Full disclosure: I find SpongeBob to be unbelievably creepy.)

Kamen's writeup of this is funnier than I could ever be, but doesn't quite give you the whole scoop, so here it is, as I understand it. The We Are Family Foundation has produced a video designed to teach tolerance. It has a bunch of cartoon characters, including SpongeBob, dancing to the song "We are Family". Also, sometimes this foundation talks about diversity, and by that they mean the usual litany we're all familiar with--including sexual orientation. This, of course, means that SpongeBob, whether he knows it or not, is being used to promote the "homosexual lifestyle".

If you want to read Dr. Dobson's defense of himself, you can read it here. I'll point out a couple of my favorite parts, such as when he says

--

I’m sure you can see, now, why I expressed great concern about the intention of the We Are Family Foundation in using SpongeBob and company to promote the theme of "tolerance and diversity," which are almost always buzzwords for homosexual advocacy.

--

and also

--

Of particular significance is a so called "Tolerance Pledge" that appears to complement the pro-homosexual propaganda found within the once available school curricula. The second paragraph of the pledge reads as follows:

"To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own." [Emphasis added.]

The words "sexual identity" in that last sentence hold the key to understanding what is going on here. They reveal a very clever and subtle intent lying below the water line. The stated purpose, as we have seen, is to teach children to respect each other and to accept those who are different. We are entirely supportive of that message. I have been teaching it for years. There appears to be another agenda operating here, however, that has serious implications for your kids. Quite simply, it is to desensitize very young children to homosexual and bisexual behavior.

--

Ah, yes, all that talk about tolerance and diversity--forget about race relations, gender equality, religious tolerance. It's all been a front for turning our nation's schoolchildren gay!

Honestly. Do these people have nothing else to do with their time but look for homosexual bogeymen everywhere? First it was Disney, then Teletubbies--now this. When you start to look around and see evil and danger everywhere you turn, you probably should ask yourself if you've got the proper perspective on the world.

Oh, and you can watch the video here, if you're into that kind of thing (sadly, it didn't appear to work on my Mac).

The Sticky Ladder

A few weeks ago, I listed David Brooks as a favored conservative commentator. Here's why. In a recent column entitled "The Sticky Ladder", Brooks takes on one of the biggest myths of this country: that we're a land of equal opportunity. In particular, he focuses in on the issue my organization was created to address: the barriers to higher education for low-income students.

Brooks explains the part of the equation he no doubt understands the best: the upper-middle-class enclaves, where families support excellent schools, everyone assumes college attendance as the norm, and each child often has multiple adults shepherding them from their resource-rich, high-achieving elementary and secondary schools into resource-rich, high-achieving colleges. He talks less about the other part of the equation, although it's implied: poor students in an environment where college is not only not expected, it's often assumed to be at least out of reach and maybe even a waste of time. People understand that the cost of college may be a barrier for poor students. They're much less likely to understand that even if college were free, there is a long, complicated process required to get from a high school biology classroom to a university political science hall, and some (mostly wealthier) people know how to work that process, and others (mostly poor) don't. If this isn't immediately obvious to you, think about going on campus visits, taking the SAT, filling out applications, filing the FAFSA, lining up housing, and registering for classes. Then think about how one would go about those tasks if she didn't have a parent, guidance counselor, or other interested adult to explain how to make it all happen.

Here's a startling statistic: poor students in the highest quartile of academic achievement attend college at about the same rate as rich students in the lowest quartile of academic achievement. Translated, that means that if you're rich but dumb (or lazy), you're still as likely to go to college as the highest-achieving poor kid. Only 7% of poor kids can expect to graduate from college by the time they're 24; about half of rich kids do. And when college graduates earn roughly a million dollars more in their lifetime than high school graduates, college attendance and degree attainment are the difference between a life of scraping by (if you're lucky) and a life of prosperity.

As long as that's true, we cannot and should not pretend that we've achieved the goal of an equal opportunity society. Brooks concludes that this means "it is silly to make a distinction between economic policy and social policy." Said differently, economic issues are values issues. If you believe that, too, make that point loud and clear whenever you get the chance.

I'll say it again...Gonzales is a bad appointment

Please see this from today's Washington Post about the written response to Senate Judiciary questions that Alberto Gonzales submitted in anticipation of his confirmation as attorney general. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36718-2005Jan25.html One choice quote:

"According to President Bush's closest legal adviser, this administration continues to assert its right to indefinitely hold foreigners in secret locations without any legal process; to deny them access to the International Red Cross; to transport them to countries where torture is practiced; and to subject them to treatment that is "cruel, inhumane or degrading," even though such abuse is banned by an international treaty that the United States has ratified. In effect, Mr. Gonzales has confirmed that the Bush administration is violating human rights as a matter of policy."

I am not a lawyer, and therefore feel less qualified than I'd like to make all the arguments one ought to make here. As a citizen, though, I feel more than equipped to say, once again, that this one is a no-brainer. Yes, to paraphrase David Gergen (on another appointment), President Bush won the election, and should get to appoint the people he wants to his team. But, there are larger considerations here. And when we knowingly, willingly confirm a person as the chief representative of law enforcement in our land, who knowingly, willingly not only disregards international law on human rights and torture with impunity, but also advocates for positions that, I thought, a national consensus has deemed wholly immoral, we are not only making a critical mistake, but also making ourselves complicit in the commitment of those immoral acts.

There's no stopping his confirmation. But that doesn't mean we have to be complicit. Speak out, and you're not complicit. Tell your Senator how you feel, and you're not complicit. Someday, when we're even deeper in the hole cleaning up the international and security damage that the positions Mr. Gonzales advocates have and will continue to create, it could be pretty important to be able to indicate that at least some percentage of the American citizenry found his views on this subject, and his subsequent appointment to Attorney General, wholly intolerable.

The Republican Terrorist Campaign Against Truth

If I've told you once, I will tell you a hundred times: the right wing is waging a guerilla war on truth. Adam Cohen calls out one of the latest battles in this intellectual insurgency in his piece, The New York Times >"The Difference Between Politically Incorrect and Historically Wrong."

Democrats (and all others interested in liberty and justice for all), stop wringing your hands about how to advance progressive values and policies. The trouble isn't the values and policies. The trouble is that the opposition has convinced too many people that the facts don't match the policies. They convinced people that Social Security is in crisis, that Al Queda wants to attacks Walmart stores in Des Moines, that evolution is not scientifically credible, that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US mainland, that civil liberties are over-rated, that the average person will be disadvantaged by the inheritance tax and helped by cuts in corporate taxes, that cells are citizens, that ignorance is faith, that rudeness is decisiveness, that tolerance is weak, that freedom of religion persecutes believers, that up is down, and that you and your grandchildren have to spend more to get less from your government.

Sooner or later, some of this will come back to haunt them. I don’t know exactly how we can hasten that day, but I know we have to call them out whenever we see it. (But, please, don’t use the term ‘lie’. It is being abused, and that is a central part of their rhetoric.)

Bush Woos African American Church Leaders

Below is an excerpt from a recent Los Angeles Times articles which outlines how the Bush Administration has built support among African American church leaders across the country....a dynamic that led to greater African American voter support for Bush during the recent presidential campaign.

While the majority of African-American voters still support Democrats, the modest gains by the Republicans among this key Dem constituency have enormous consequences in battleground states where a single point makes all the difference. We need to do a better job of protecting our flank....

From the Los Angeles Times - January 18, 2005

Bishop Sedgwick Daniels, one of this city's most prominent black pastors, supported Democrats in past presidential elections, backing Bill Clinton and Al Gore. This fall, however, the bishop's broad face appeared on Republican Party fliers in the battleground state of Wisconsin, endorsing President Bush as the candidate who "shares our views."What changed? After Bush's contested 2000 victory, Daniels felt the pull of a most powerful worldly force: a call from the White House. He conferred with top administration officials and had a visit in 2002 from the president himself. His church later received $1.5 million in federal funds through Bush's initiative to support faith-based social services.

Daniels' political conversion, and similar transformations by black pastors across the nation, form a little-known chapter in the playbook of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign -- and may mark the beginning of a political realignment long sought by senior White House advisor Karl Rove and other GOP strategists. Daniels says it was not the federal money that led him to endorse the Republican candidate last year, but rather the values of Bush and other party leaders who champion church ministries, religious education and moral clarity. It was evidence to many religious African Americans that the GOP could be an appealing home.

That's exactly the way many conservative Republican and evangelical leaders hope the faith-based program will work."The political benefits are unbelievable," says the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, which helped shape the administration's faith-based strategy and the GOP's outreach to black Christian voters. "The Democrats ought to have their heads examined for voting against this." The money that flowed to Daniels' church was part of a broader effort inspired by Bush's contention that religious groups can do a better job than government in providing such services as counseling, education and drug treatment. In 2003, the administration awarded more than $1 billion to hundreds of faith-based groups, some of which hadn't received such public funds in the past. The White House adamantly denies that the faith initiative is a political tool. But the program has provoked criticism that the GOP is seeking to influence new supporters, especially African Americans, with taxpayer funds. The Rev. Timothy McDonald of Atlanta, a prominent black minister with Democratic ties, dubbed the program an "attempt to identify new leadership in the black community and use the money to prop these people up. "There's no question that the faith initiative -- combined with the administration's support for banning gay marriage and promoting school vouchers -- has already helped reshape Bush's image among some traditionally Democratic African Americans.

And the change in black support on Nov. 2, though only a 2-percentage-point increase nationwide, helped secure Bush's reelection victory. The gains were greater in battleground states. In the crucial state of Ohio, where the faith-based program was promoted last fall at rallies and ministerial meetings, a rise in black support for Bush created the cushion he needed to win the presidential race without a legal challenge in that state. Now, Republicans are plotting further gains using the faith program as one major entry point. Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd says that as early as 2006, Republican Senate and House candidates could win a quarter of the African American vote. The long-term goals, he said, are even more ambitious. That would be a dramatic rise from the 11% of the national black electorate that went for Bush last year -- a projection that even some of the most enthusiastic Republicans, such as former Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma, caution could be overly optimistic. Yet even a modest shift in the voting patterns of the minority group traditionally the most loyal to Democrats could transform the dynamics of American politics, giving Republicans an edge for decades.

The political appeal of this approach was clear one Sunday two weeks before the election in the west-side Milwaukee neighborhood where Daniels' 8,000-member church is located. Lying amid abandoned warehouses and modest homes, the Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ is instantly visible, a $25-million complex including a school, health clinic, credit union, senior housing complex and -- soon -- a retail center and water park. That morning, Daniels told congregants he wouldn't tell them whom to vote for -- but then turned over the pulpit to one of Bush's most prominent African American advocates."We know what faith-based can do every single day," Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele told the congregation, drawing head nodding and remarks of "yes" and "Amen" from more than 1,000 in the vast sanctuary.

That enthusiasm was echoed in battleground states across the country, particularly in Pentecostal congregations that include some of the most conservative black Americans. GOP field organizers and campaign surrogates cited the faith initiative to churchgoers -- particularly in heavily black urban centers vital to Democrats. "It got them to listen and it was impressive because President Bush put money where his mouth is," said Lamont Couch, an African American outreach worker for Florida Republicans during the 2004 campaign. Deborah Burstion-Donbraye, an Ohio GOP official who led the party's outreach effort to black voters, said the faith initiative -- along with the White House position on abortion, school vouchers and gay marriage -- gave many longtime black Democrats a reason to consider voting for Bush."For the first time, even those who may have been most against what the administration stood for realized they had a friend in the White House," she said. The GOP wooing of African Americans took other forms as well. Early this month, it was disclosed that the administration paid $240,000 to a prominent black commentator, Armstrong Williams, to promote Bush's education agenda.But the faith-based initiative provides an especially compelling and long-lasting draw to black voters, said Steele, who studied to be a priest before entering politics. When the president cites the initiative's emphasis on funding small and independent church organizations that have never received government funds before, the message has special resonance with black congregations." That's part of the strategy to create some realignment, to demonstrate to the African American community that your issues are the same as our issues," Steele said in an interview. And many say the best way to reach those voters is through the preacher. As Bush political advisor Dowd put it: "The minister is the No. 1 influencer in the African American community."

The administration's attention to faith-based programs in battleground states appeared to pay off. In Florida, where record black turnout in Democratic precincts nearly put Gore in the White House in 2000, Bush's support among African Americans in November rose 6 percentage points to 13%, helping to increase the president's victory margin and avoid a repeat of the 2000 squeaker that inspired the recount. In Wisconsin, the president drew 14% of the black vote last year, 3 points above his nationwide performance. In all-important Ohio, Bush's vote tally among African Americans more than doubled his 2000 total, and he gained 7 percentage points to draw 16% of the black vote. If Bush had received the same proportion of black votes in Ohio as he did in 2000, the president's margin of victory would have narrowed from the actual 118,000 to about 25,000, according to an analysis by David Bositis at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a leading think tank on black issues. Given the high number of provisional ballots filed in Ohio, said Bositis, "Ohio would have become Florida, the legal battleground of 2004."

On Tom Polger's Post re: Liberty

I was struck very much by Tom's post on freedom and liberty. It's been on my mind quite a bit since President Bush delivered his inaugural. As often happens, Jon Stewart put into words what I was mulling in my brain. He showed that the president's speech contained 27 references to "Liberty" and 15 to "Freedom" in a scoreboard-style graphic, and then pointed out that Liberty beat Freedom, "Freedom, of course, playing hurt since the passage of the Patriot Act."

I've been deeply troubled by our approach to civil liberties in the US since 9/11, and felt that the limited access to the inaugural festivities and the extent to which the president seemed literally barricaded from people underscored the disturbing change. Then, to have us preach liberty to the globe without at least an honest look at, and discussion of, freedom at home--even if, as a result of that discussion, we decide to do nothing different--seems incomplete at best, hypocritical at worst.

Two Concepts of Freedom

I am wary of seeming to rely too much on Harvard professors who publish in the New York Times, 'cause the Republican spin machine is so good at dismissing them. (This, despite the fact that they have plenty of Harvard professors who also publish in the New York Times.) But Orlando Patterson's take on W's "freedom" speech is really quite wonderful. Let me share two of its nuggets of insight:

"In the 20th century two versions of freedom emerged in America. The modern liberal version emphasizes civil liberties, political participation and social justice. It is the version... most treasured by foreigners who struggle for freedom in their own countries. But most ordinary Americans view freedom in quite different terms. In their minds, freedom has been radically privatized. Its most striking feature is what is left out: politics, civic participation and the celebration of traditional rights, for instance... Freedom, in this conception, means doing what one wants and getting one's way."

He then notes:

"It is not that Americans have rejected the formal model of freedom--ask any American if he believes in democracy and a free press and he will genuinely endorse both. Rather it is that such abstract notions of freedom are far removed from their notion of what freedom means and how it is experienced."

Patterson's distinction not only helps make sense of W's innaugural address, but also of the strange way that the neocons trample on freedoms (#1) in order to grant freedoms (#2).

I was surprised by one part of Pattersons's analysis, however. Who would have thought that civil liberties and political participation are "abstract" values? What could be more central to the experience of freedom than the experience of your liberties being encroached upon?

God and Darwin in the Washington Post

Does the editor of the Washington Post read Ripple of Hope, or just read the Times?

But notice that both editorials only mention one part of the issue. They discuss the church and state aspect, but not the underlying battle over who gets to decide what count as facts--experts or politicians.

What "Progressives" Can Learn from Newt

The following article makes the important point that the Democratic party has more to learn from Newt Gingrich than how to fight. Newt had a knack for new ideas -- good or bad is beside the point. The Democratic party needs to learn that knack. Increasingly, it seems, Democrats use the term "progressive" to define themselves -- and, really, to avoid the "liberal" label. For the new label to stick, however, the party needs new substance. Indeed, a defining adjective of progressivism is "reform." But which party do you think of when you think of education reform, welfare reform, tax reform, "tort" reform, social security reform, ... even foreign policy reform? A group of billionaires, including George Soros, recently committed themselves to a major new investment in the "intellectual infrastructure" of the progressive/liberal cause. That investment is sorely needed.


The return of the Newt
Jan 20th 2005 From The Economist print edition

Will the Democrats learn the right lessons from a revolutionary Republican?
TEN years ago, Newt Gingrich was the Sun King of American politics. He not only masterminded the first Republican takeover of Congress in 40 years; he also rammed through a wish-list of conservative policies, from a balanced budget to welfare reform. “It's a whole Newt world,” yelled one excited congressman when Newt was elected speaker.
That world didn't last long. The man who skewered the Democratic speaker for ethics violations was skewered for ethics violations of his own. A man who criticised Bill Clinton for womanising was exposed as a womaniser himself. With his negative ratings at stratospheric levels, he was unceremoniously turfed out of the speaker's chair. The Robespierre of the Republican revolution was reduced to appearing on “Da Ali G Show”.

Now Newt is back. This is not just because he's hawking a book—“Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America”—and sounding out a presidential run. (People like Mr Gingrich are always hawking themselves in one way or another.) It's because people of all political persuasions, on the left as much as the right, are suddenly interested in what he has to sell.
A growing number of conservatives regard Mr Gingrich as both an inspiration and an indictment: an inspiration for George Bush's second term and an indictment of the Republican establishment. In the mid-1990s, Mr Gingrich proved that you could push through “pie-in-the-sky” policies, notably welfare reform and a balanced budget, by dint of discipline and determination. Mr Bush has passed the first Gingrich test by embracing big bold ideas, such as Social Security reform and tax simplification. Now, argue conservatives, the president needs to pass the second Gingrich test by ramming his policies through, using the grassroots energy that characterised the Gingrich revolution ten years ago.

But if conservatives are inspired by Mr Bush's second-term agenda, they are also dismayed by what has been happening to their party. Mr Gingrich rose to power promising smaller government and a cleaner Congress. In his first term, Mr Bush delivered bigger, dirtier government, spending more money than Mr Clinton did. The Department of Education (which Mr Gingrich promised to abolish) has so much cash swilling around that it can afford to pay a conservative pundit, Armstrong Williams, $240,000 to promote an education bill that he would have promoted for nothing. And the Republicans are every bit as corrupt and pork-addicted as the Democrats they replaced. They even contemplated weakening Congress's ethics code in order to protect their ethically-challenged leader, Tom DeLay.

Yet the most striking uptick in interest in Mr Gingrich is on the left. Mr Gingrich has received star treatment from two left-leaning pundits—Michael Crowley in the New Republic and Marshall Wittmann in the Democratic Leadership Council's house magazine, Blueprint. The reason why liberals are suddenly so interested is simple enough: Mr Gingrich was the last person to turn a minority party into a majority party in Congress.

When the bumptious young congressman from Georgia was first elected, in 1979, he pledged to do everything in his power to turn a party that had grown too comfortable with opposition into a ruling party. Forget about politics being the sport of gentlemen. Forget about not soiling your own nest. Lampoon the Democratic speaker for a dodgy book deal. In fact, throw everything you can find at your enemy. In effect, Mr Gingrich led a peasants' revolt against his party's establishment.

A growing number of Democrats think the Gingrich approach has something going for it. They worry that their party's leaders are becoming habituated to opposition. They calculate that the party's increasing corruption makes it the perfect target for a populist rebellion. And they think that they may have found a perfect issue to shake up the political system. Just as the Republicans prepared the ground for their 1994 victory by blocking Hillarycare, the Clintons' grandiose attempt to transform the health-care system, so the Democrats can start their comeback by leading an all-out assault on Social Security reform.
Remember the ideas as well

Is this a good plan? This week, David Brooks, a conservative commentator at the New York Times, pointed to some practical problems for these “Gingrich Democrats”—not least the fact that America contains at least three conservatives for every two liberals. Slash-and-burn politics, he points out, is much riskier for the left now than it was for the right in the 1990s (though it is hard to see how neo-Gingrichism could be any worse for the Democrats than their current policy of muddling through).

In fact, the biggest problem for the Democrats is not that they will learn too much from Mr Gingrich but that they won't learn enough. In particular, they will embrace his passion for pugilism without embracing his passion for ideas. For Mr Gingrich has always been a fountain of schemes—some bold (reinventing health care or environmental policy), some small (paying students to take unpopular subjects such as mathematics and science), some nutty (employing the handicapped on space stations or giving laptops to the homeless), but all of them interesting.
The biggest problem with the current Democratic leadership is not that it has lost the will to fight but that it has lost the power to think. When was the last intellectually innovative idea you heard from Nancy Pelosi, the current minority leader, or, for that matter, from Dick Gephardt, her predecessor? Heaven knows, Mr Gingrich's musings have caused his party problems. But the Democrats are in danger of turning into that most pathetic of all political organisations—a minority party that devotes all its energies to the blind defence of the status quo. By all means let the Democrats learn from Newt the fighter; but if they want to recapture power they need to learn from Newt the thinker, too.

New York Times: The Crafty Attacks on Evolution

Is the New York Times editor reading Ripple of Hope?

O'Reilly on Evolution and What Counts as Science

Not long ago, I suggested that one issue for which intelligent grass roots action is urgently needed is the teaching of evolution in public schools. Perhaps you thought this was going to be a small issue, limited in scope to a few backwards districts in red states. But it is not, it is a national issue, as confirmed by Bill O' Reilly's recent interest in the topic.

The important thing to notice is that there are really two issues involved in the debate, and in O'Reilly's verbal sewage. One is the separation of church and state. The second--if the first is not important enough for you--is who controls what counts as truth. It comes as no surprise to anyone that O'Reilly is willing to fabricate facts. But I think this is really just another indicator of the current regime's willingness to ignore and openly mock science, and experts of all sorts in general.

It's Freedom!

This just in from John Stewart: it was Freedom versus Liberty in the President's cliche-ridden inauguration speech, and "freedom" won in a landslide: 27 mentions to just 15 puny mentions for "liberty". No word yet on "justice"...

Immigration - Mixed Messages

As we all know, immigration continues to be a hot-button topic across the country. In California, there has been a great deal of controversy and attention on a state proposal to allow undocumented immigrants to receive a drivers license. The author of this proposal, State Senator Gilbert Cedillo, has introduced this measure as a means of providing thousands of immigrants with the ability to legally drive to and from their jobs. Opponents to this proposal have cited "homeland security" as one of their primary concerns, claiming that it will make it easier for terrorists to gain legal identification in the U.S. Yet, despite attempts by Cedillo to include strict background checks and other security measures in the proposal, it continues to draw an enormous amount of scrutiny and opposition.

But let's be honest.....the real reason for the hostility toward this measure is because it recognizes and to some degree legitimizes the presence of undocumented immigrants in both California and the United States. Our friends on the right want immigrants to remain in the shadows...not seen and definitely not heard. They do not want to acknowledge our dirty little secret....that we are dependent upon immigrant labor. California's ranks first in food and agricultural production in the United States, and accounts for approximately 50% of the nation's fruit, nut, and vegetable production. The workforce for this $100 billion industry are overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. California's enormous service industry economy is also fueled by immigrants, who work in restaurants, hotels, and office buildings.

Now, where is the outrage against the business community for hiring these workers? The fact is that we like paying low prices for fruits and vegetables, and no one wants to spend 12 hour days in the hot sun picking fruits for below minimum wage.

The drivers license bill shines a huge spotlight that, whether you like it or not, immigrants are a part of our society. Worse yet, they refuse to accept the reality that immigrants are not the economic drain that they perceive them (and probably hope) for them to be.

To allow someone to legally drive to a job we all depend on them for is a small price to pay. We can't have it both ways folks. Unless the Republicans want to pick up a hoe.

Gonzales and Guns

As it seems clear that Alberto Gonzales is going to be confirmed, we might as well notice that even a very wrong person sometimes gets something right--like his support for renewing the assault weapons ban. I know, I know, this is digging deep for a nugget of hope. But, well, that's just the kind of week it is.

The Pew Charitable Trusts: Informing the Public: Public opinion and polls

The Pew Charitable Trusts: Informing the Public: Public opinion and polls

There are about eight different foci one could choose for commentary based on these latest stats from Pew. All are fascinating, and all require more time than I have. I definitely recommend taking a look at this information, though.

A Bloody Mess

A Bloody Mess

Before Democrats, Republicans, and the public begin the debate about how to "fix" Social Security, they may want to pay attention to Britain's state sponsored pension problems. The American Prospect points out Maggie Thatcher and the Conservatives followed a course similar to the current administration. First Thatcher slashed taxes then they bemoaned their state pension system was facing a monumental crisis and needed drastic reform. The reforms Thatcher pushed for and won are similar in substance to Bush's ownership obsession and private investment accounts. As the American Prospect points out, Britain's privatization push has resulted in a system on the verge of disaster. As a result, reformers are looking at America's Social Security system for ideas:

For all the fanfare that surrounds the Bush administration’s efforts to present a bold new idea on pension reform, the truth is that it is not new at all. In fact, the proposal looks suspiciously like the plan set in train during Thatcher’s first term in 1979 and which has since led Britain to the brink of a crisis. Since then, the nation’s basic pension, which is paid for out of tax receipts, has shrunk dramatically. The United Kingdom has the stingiest state pension program of any G8 nation, and there is growing consensus -- even among British conservatives -- that reform is needed. And ironically enough, considering that America is on the verge of copying Britain’s mistake, most experts seek reform in the direction of a more generous, and simpler, basic state pension -- one similar in design, in other words, to America’s Social Security program.

As is often the case, privatization is as expensive or more so than a publicly subsidized system. Apparently, Britain's private pension approach is failing because the facial cost savings and benefits have been outweighed by costs, fees, and smaller returns.

Britain’s experiment with substituting private savings accounts for a portion of state bene?ts has been a failure. A shorthand explanation for what has gone wrong is that the costs and risks of running private investment accounts outweigh the value of the returns they are likely to earn. On average, fees and charges can reduce pension lump sums by up to 30 percent on retirement.

Like Britain's Labour and Tories, America's Democrats and Republicans seem intent of finding some compromise on Social Security reform without adequately considering the long term implications. At the outset Britain's attempt at reform was hardly noticed. According the American Prospect, Britain's past pension success, rivaling even more generous continental state pensions, depended on the right mix of an incredibly generous private pension system and modest, but secure state pension. By privatizing the pension system and agressively encouraging people to divert money from the state sponsored system to the private fund, Britain suddenly found themselves paying out more than they were receiving. As a result, benefits under the GMP (Guranteed Minimum Pension) had to be slashed. Those who invested in private funds found pay outs were less than touted when compared to their state pension benefits.

In May, when Britons get a chance to go to the polls its very likely pension reform will be a hot item. This seems appropriate and as the American Prospect points out ironic. At the same time Britain, America's closest, socially, and politically similar ally, focuses on reforming their state pension in a fashion similar to Social Security, Bush and Co. are pushing a solution that emulates Britain's failed system. Hopefully, our politicians will take the time and study the impact private retirement accounts will have on our retirement safety net.

What is a good display of leadership?

I'm thinking back to a posting earlier this month that one of my co-contributors made about the costs of the inaugural and whether it should go forward. I have to say, I find myself increasingly concerned and appalled by the cost and spectacle of this week's inaugural. I tended to agree from the begining that, at a time of war, and with so many deaths stacking up every day, a series of parties for the president's inauguration seemed inappropriate. And I think that would have been true regardless of whether it was Bush or Kerry being inaugurated.

But now, with the stories about the skyrocketing costs, what seems to be blatant purchasing of favor by corporations that can contribute $250,000 (up from $100,000, I believe) to help pay for a party, the desire to pass some of the costs off on the District of Columbia, and the extent to which it all feels like so much gloating, I feel like we've moved to the realm of grossly inappropriate. And what it gets me to thinking about is the question of leadership.

I feel like, as a liberal democracy, we lack a coherent notion of democratic leadership (note the small "d.") I feel like we've suffered as an electorate because we don't have a sense for what good leadership by a democratically elected official should be. We've embraced concepts like "tough" because we're fed them, but we don't really know what we should and shouldn't value as as citizenry. We all share vague notions that prize honesty, loyalty and integrity, and these are good notions. But I feel like we don't have a sense of how, and in what ways these should be applied, and therefore are easily manipulated by shallow presentations of these themes. I include myself in this description.

It's for this reason, I sometimes think, that we fail to value accountability, for example. And it would be for this reason that we don't have some national sense of impropriety at the arrogance and excess of the parties that will come on Thursday night.

This isn't well written, but it's a germ of an idea that's been forming for a while. I hope to revisit it off annd on here as my thoughts become more clear.

It's his Obsession

Is anyone else vaguely uncomfortable with Josh Marshall's social security fixation? In my mind, before you crucify the Democrats who are looking at some of these proposals, you should make sure that they are, in fact, just bending in the political wind. I'm not so sure that they are.

Politics and Happiness

The following book review, and book, suggest that, after we have enough money to satisfy our basic needs, money really can't buy happiness. I'm not entirely sure how these findings should affect our policies and politics, but I'm sure they should -- and haven't fully done so yet. For example, wouldn't these findings tend to suggest that voters could be more supportive of things like the Family Medical Leave Act than of lower taxes? The Democratic party, and the Kerry campaign, deserves some credit for beginning to recognize this in the last election, but we need to take it deeper.

Can't buy it? Jan 13th 2005 From The Economist print edition

Happiness: Lessons from a New Science By Richard Layard The Penguin Press; 272 pages; $25.95.

FOR the past half-century, those lucky enough to have been born in a rich country have had every prospect of growing richer. On average, incomes in Britain, America and Japan, adjusted for inflation, have easily doubled over that time. On top of this come the benefits of longer lives of better quality, thanks to advances in medicine and to a plethora of consumer goodies making living easier and more enjoyable. You might, even, expect folk to be a great deal happier today than in the 1950s.

You would be wrong, according to many surveys taken in rich countries. These tend to show that, once a country has lifted itself out of poverty, further rises in income seem not to create a meaningful rise in the proportion of people who count themselves as happy. Since the 1950s, for example, the proportion of Americans who tell pollsters that they are “very happy” has stayed constant at around 30%, while the proportion who say that they are “not very happy” has barely fallen. Explaining this paradox, and offering suggestions for increasing the supply of happiness, is the aim of a new book by Richard Layard, a professor of economics at the London School of Economics and a Labour peer.

Lord Layard devotes a good portion of the book to a summary of what is known about how to be happy. Much of it will appear self-evident: cultivate friendships, be involved in a community, try for a good marriage. But his big idea is controversial. It is that a zero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness. Put simply, one person's pay rise is another person's psychic loss. To make that loss worse, says the author, there are only so many top rungs on the ladder of status—and as a peer of the realm, Lord Layard should know.

He is among a growing group of economists who are dissatisfied with the way that the dominant neoclassical school of economics gauges well-being. When they try to divine human desires and happiness, mainstream economists look much more at what people do rather than at what they say. If, perhaps, you choose to work 90-hour weeks and skimp on leisure time, it follows that work is what makes you happy—or at least happier than taking extra time for leisure: otherwise you would not be doing it. Your actions, in other words, are said to reveal your “true” preferences, even if you tell a researcher that you would rather be spending more time with your children (what is known as your “stated” preference).

To counter such Panglossian logic, Lord Layard draws upon the findings of behavioural economists, who make use of the insights and techniques of psychologists. These are more inclined to give credence to people's stated desires and feelings. Among many things, the behaviourists have found that it is relative, not absolute wealth, that matters most to people. Mr Layard cites as evidence a study in which Harvard University students claimed to prefer earning $50,000 a year when their peers are on only $25,000 to a world in which they earn $100,000 while their peers get more than double that amount. The survey sample is anything but representative, but you get the point.

So, Lord Layard's thinking goes, by spending 90 hours a week in the office, you may be improving your own income, but you are also causing other people to feel less satisfied with theirs. They may be encouraged to work longer themselves just to keep up, taking from the time that gets devoted to family and community.

It is, the author argues, something similar to environmental pollution, where one person's action (or a company's) makes others worse off. Fortunately, he notes, economists have already figured out how to deal with such externalities: tax them so that the polluter internalises the cost of his actions. And so, near the top of Lord Layard's list for improving human happiness, comes the following recommendation: much higher rates of income tax to tame the rat race.
The author singles out income inequality as a psychic wound uniquely worthy of state intervention. But if raising the level of happiness is to be the chief aim of government policy, as he argues it should, where then is the call to make divorce harder, given the pain that he says broken homes inflict on children? Further, where is his desire to compel the worship of a higher being, also on his list as a source of happiness? Thankfully, both are absent, but he never mentions the obvious reason for why they are: namely, that most people value freedom as a greater good than enforced happiness. The pursuit of happiness, Lord Layard's book will convince most people, is a private matter.

The press isn't free...it's $240,000

I've been delaying posting on the Armstrong Williams/Department of Education story for a while, mostly because I couldn't quite figure out how to frame what troubled me most about the story. As all good procrastinators know, it pays off about ten percent of the time--and this was one of them, since George Will helped me put my jumbled thoughts together with this excellent piece in the Washington Post earlier this week.

I fear that, like me, other liberals are so angry with the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress that we express equal outrage over every wrong, whether small or large. To much of the country, we're the boy who cried wolf--and when our ire comes bubbling to the surface with such ease, we risk confusing merely offensive stories with those that are truly dangerous not just to our citizens, but to the United States of America itself. One story line that falls into the second category is the abuse of detainees as part of the war against terrorism. The Armstrong Williams story (and its counterparts) is another.

I've always put George Will into the category of Smart Republicans I Always Listen To (along with Bill Kristol, David Brooks, and my friend Trish), even if I rarely agree with him and often find myself agitated at his premise. But when I realize that not only do we agree on something, but we share the same reasoning, I figure it's worth sitting up and taking notice. In this case, Will said

Obviously government leaders must try to lead by persuading the public. But government by the consent of the governed should not mean government by consent produced by government propaganda. Unfortunately, as government's pretensions grow, so does its sense that its glorious ends justify even the tackiest means.

And there it is--the heart of my problem with the government paying commentators, or making fake newscasts from the Drug Czar's office, or hiring PR firms. Most stories I've read have either focused on 'journalistic ethics' (gasp! Armstrong Williams is a schill for the Administration!) or inappropriate use of education dollars ($240K would fund about 60 Pell Grants). But that's the small part of the story, the low-hanging fruit.

The real problem is that our government should be reporting to us, not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Our ability to govern ourselves, already in some peril, rests in large part on the transparency of the government. Every politician, no matter the political party, tries to get favorable media coverage through a variety of strategies; every agency issues press releases and arranges photo ops or events designed to garner favorable coverage. But this is the difference between an employee presenting information to her boss in the best light possible, and an employee deliberately hiding some information the boss might not like. In this case, and in many other instances, government officials are abusing their positions to manipulate the very information we use for decision-making. Don't focus too hard on Williams; a conservative commentator taking money to say things he probably would have said anyway is not the scariest part (although it's a little scary). The scariest part is the idea that someone (or maybe many someones) is working behind the scenes to make sure we hear exactly, and only, the story he wants us to hear--and then, loudly and boldly claiming a mandate because we've consented to something we don't understand. Our system of self-government, under those conditions, is broken.

Pushing forward

2004 was the year gay and lesbian Americans came close to realizing the reality of marriage only to have it yanked away by ballot initiatives and a bile filled President. Massachusetts, San Francisco, and Multnomah County Oregon all plowed ahead in the spirit of equal rights. With their last demon about to be dispelled, the Right sprung into action. Phyllis Schlaflay brushed off her hate playbook and went to work. When the dust settled, gays, lesbians, and progressives were soundly outworked. Act Up went so far as to suggest the struggle for gay rights was over.

Like all gay Americans I was encouraged by the promise of equal access to marriage and the rights and benefits associated with marriage. I tempered my hope with the reality that America at large was not ready for gays and lesbians getting married (even though most Americans believe gays and lesbians shouldn't be discriminated against) and the gay activist community was not ready for the marriage fight. Instead of pushing furiously for marriage I always believed we would have used our energy and resources better if we pushed to expand the states prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.



Shockingly, only 13 states (light purple) have blanket prohibitions against discrimination against gays and lesbains. Even Washington is without the most basic protection. Since the mid 1970's, Washington has been trying to pass basic anti discrimination legislation. Each time, the legislation has failed. This year, Washington may finally pass legislation banning discrimination founded on sexual orientation. Until only recently, Illinois was one of the states without blanket protections. This map underscores the depth and breadth of work left to do. Its easy to be dejected. Marriage was a reality in some places. Realtionships all over the country were about to be legitimized. Yet, in most of America legalized discrimination is the reality.

Access to marriage is a laudable goal and will become a reality sometime. Other countries are begining to warm to the idea of allowing gays and lesbians to marry (Canada, Spain, New Zealand, etc.) and eventually so will the United States. Instead of fretting about the big picture, reaching for marriage but failing we need battles we can win. Winning will build our political clout. Winning is practical and necessary. Until we win we will never be ready for the marriage fight and the ultimate responsibility that comes with having the right to marry. The potential of possibility is nice, but it's no substitute for reality. Broad support and acceptance of marriage will never be a reality until we 1) successfully socialize the country and 2) have victories which legitimize gay and lesbians in other ways.

Right now, we need to look around the country take note. In Iowa, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether or not a District Court Judge could dissolve a civil union solemnized in Vermont. Even though the War on Terrorism is raging, the US military still prohibits gay Americans from serving openly even when they offer valuable skills (like being fluent in Arabic.) A year ago, Burlington, Iowa and Bettendorf, Iowa were both struggling with whether or not to include sexual orientation in their civil rights codes. Illinois just passed legislation prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians. Hopefully, Washington won't be too far behind. Washington will even be examining the constitutionality of its Defense of Marriage law. These issues aren't as exciting as legalizing marriage, but they are fundamental.

Every civil rights movement has moved in fits and spurts. The struggle against racial discrimination began at our nation's inception, hit a high point with the emancipation of slaves, plummeted with the rise of the KKK and laws aimed at restricting African Americans, found success in the 1960's and continues today as African Americans push to eradicate the the unfortunate connections between poverty, race, opportunity, and imprisonment while clinging to basic concepts like Affirmative Action.

Americans and gay and lesbians will be better with a little struggle and disappointment. The gay rights movement is relatively young. Begun in 1969, its roughly only 35 years old. In 35 short years we have come a long way. Sexual orientation has been decriminalized, HIV/AIDS has been attacked vigorously, criminal sodomy laws were overturned, and states and municipalities are gradually embracing anti discrimination measures. If human history is a guide, every victory will bring about challenges and opportunities. Marriage might seem like the end point, but really its just the begining. Once we get marriage, the entire box of civil family law will be opened. If marriage isn't daunting enough, imagine trying to square every family permutation with the laws of each and every state. When we get there, I am sure we'll be ready.

So now it's all Iowa's fault?!

As my friends all know, it's ridiculously easy way to get a rise out of me if you choose to--just attack the Iowa caucuses. It seems that every four years the same few friends and I have the same argument about Iowa’s place in the presidential nominating process—surprisingly, none of us ever changes anyone else’s mind on the topic.

I thought I had heard it all in the quadrennial attacks on my home state—but Peter Beinart introduced me to some new material in the Washington Post this week. Luckily, this one is much easier to take apart than the arguments of my intelligent, yet wrong-headed, friends.

Beinart’s main claim seems to be that Iowa nominates doves. Sort of like they did in 2004, when they voted for the dovish candidate, Howard Dean. Except, that’s right--Iowa didn’t vote for Dean. Iowans actually chose John Kerry, who voted FOR the war (before he voted against it), and then for John Edwards, also a war supporter. Dean, the dove, finished third. By Beinart’s standard (the more dovish, the more likely to win Iowa), Dennis Kucinich should have won the state, with his idea of a Department of Peace, instead of finishing with about the same percentage of votes as those candidates who had actively spurned the state. As supporting evidence, he points out that some candidates have skipped the Iowa caucuses. Like Al Gore, in 1988. Except Gore didn’t skip Iowa because of his war vote. He skipped it because in Iowa, in 1988, you couldn’t turn around without bumping into someone running for president, and he knew he couldn’t win, and it wasn’t just about the war. Or Joe Lieberman, in 2004. Except Lieberman skipped Iowa because he didn’t have any money, and he doesn’t support ethanol—a much more egregious sin than war-mongering.

He also argues that Iowans are uncommonly dovish, because of our “peace churches” and our lack of military contact. Except there are far more Mennonite churches in Kansas, or in Virginia (two states no one would call dovish), then there are in Iowa. Iowa has 9 Quaker meeting houses, as opposed to 34 Assembly of God churches or 76 Southern Baptist Convention churches. And they don't build weapons or have a giant active duty military base in the state, which may explain the relatively low amount of defense dollars flowing in; but most Iowans are related to, married to, or friends with at least one person currently serving in Iraq. To suggest that Iowans are substantially removed from and disdainful of the military is wrongheaded on its face.

It’s true that Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa are doves--at not dramatically different rates than Democratic primary voters throughout the nation. And, setting aside any discussion of the efficacy of the caucus system itself (because that’s a whole other argument), there’s nothing about the system that makes it easier for doves than hawks to navigate. Beinart asserts, rightly so, that it’s hard to participate in caucuses, making it more likely that true believers will dominate. But why would that be more likely to be doves than union members, pro-choice voters, or African-Americans (don’t laugh; there are a few in the state!), all equally reliable Democratic supporters?

It seems to me that what's really going on here is that Mr. Beinart doesn't like the Iowa caucuses, and has come up with a nifty new reason to give them the heave-ho from their 'First in the Nation' position. Like the caucuses or don’t like them—either way, Beinart’s article is not only ridiculous to suggest that Iowa is to blame for the Democrats’ national security problem; it shows that he doesn’t know much about Iowa. I bet if he wanted to go visit, the Quakers would be happy to show him around.

Ethics Disclosure: I'm on the David Englin, Democrat for Delegate Payroll

I'll be writing about many things in the coming months, most of them not directly related to my husband's campaign. But I'll doubtless write some things about the campaign. I may even go so far as exhorting you to support him, volunteer for him, recruit your friends and family...hard to say right now, but I won't rule anything out at this early point.

Since it's evidently vitally important that we figure out the "ethics of blogging," and those ethics must include full disclosure that we have opinions, and sometimes we back those opinions up in our day/night jobs, please consider this my full ethics disclosure:

I support David Englin in the primary for the 45th District of the Virginia House of Delegates. I may or may not occasionally receive compensation, in cash or in-kind, for my work on that campaign. The compensation will often consist of pizza. Or maybe even doughnuts. I will very likely voice my support in the context of opinion pieces I write for this blog.

There you go. I bet we all feel much, much better. Now the WSJ, et al, can safely go back to covering things that actually matter.

Good grief.

Death to Clintonism: Chuck Todd's With Me

If my previous entreaties haven't convinced you to subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly, I'll make another pitch here: you should do it. Full disclosure: this time it's personal. In the latest edition, Hotline editor Chuck Todd has a commentary, Clintonism, R.I.P.. He makes many excellent arguments, including a bunch that agree with me (and his fellow Atlantic contributor Jack Beatty).

Take it away, Mr. Todd:

What's been missing is a discussion of how the Democratic Party arrived at this point; that requires a broader view, encompassing both parties' most recent periods of triumph and focusing particularly on the major difference between the evolving political legacies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. As a candidate each sought to distance himself from his party's reigning image—Bush through "compassionate conservatism" and Clinton through a "third way" approach between liberalism and conservatism. Each succeeded well enough to win two terms. And each is now viewed within his party as something close to the ideal.

The difference is that Bush measurably strengthened the Republican Party along the way, whereas Clinton worried mainly about his own political fortunes, to the detriment of his party. Every election under Bush has resulted in Republican gains in Congress; in sharp contrast, Clinton assumed office with his party in control of the House, the Senate, and a majority of governorships, and left it with none of those advantages. Since Clinton, Democratic losses have deepened and broadened to include both subsequent presidential races, in which the Democratic nominees dutifully adopted Clinton's strategy of centrist triangulation. The results so starkly apparent on November 2 should prompt a question that, though still heretical to Democrats, is worthy of being posed here: Is it time to retire Clintonism as a political philosophy?

Yes, Mr. Todd, it is. So long, fare thee well, see ya latah. Todd even has a plan for how to manage the retirement gracefully:

There are two ways the Democrats' Clinton problem can be solved. One is if Hillary Clinton runs successfully for the presidency in 2008, redeeming Clintonism as both a tactic and a philosophy. The other is if the party severs ties to Bill Clinton and those most closely associated with him, relegating him to the mythic status Reagan achieved, as someone whose great symbolic power for the party faithful can be celebrated and invoked—but only from a safe distance.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it will be a frigid day in hell before Hillary is elected President. So let the relegating to myth begin! "Win one for the Gipper Bubba?"

Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground

I don't entirely disagree with the argument of many that the left needs to move on (ahem) from its anger at the president and his men for taking us into war on false pretenses. Whether he lied or was just dreadfully misinformed, the reasons we were given for invading Iraq were false, and that's why you almost never hear them mentioned anymore. It's unconscionable, they should have been punished last November with the loss of their jobs, but we Democrats couldn't put together a candidate and a campaign capable of exacting that punishment. Done and done. Time to look forward to changing our party so it's positioned for victory at some point in the future. "But they LIED!" wasn't an effective message in 2004 and it won't be in 2006, 2008 or beyond. History will judge Dubya harshly, but the voters did not.

That said, I'm fine with focusing some wrath on the consequences. As reported today in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and even Fox News, the CIA is confirming what many in the intelligence community were arguing a year ago -- the President has given radical Islamic terrorists a great big gift. (I wonder if General Shinseki had already started a club of people who were roundly shouted down as moronic by this administration, only to be later vindicated by the facts? It's a club whose membership will only continue to grow in the next four years.) From the Washington Post:

Bush described the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy in the Middle East. "A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East," he said one month before the invasion. "Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity in a region that needs both."

But as instability in Iraq grew after the toppling of Hussein, and resentment toward the United States intensified in the Muslim world, hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders. They found tons of unprotected weapons caches that, military officials say, they are now using against U.S. troops. Foreign terrorists are believed to make up a large portion of today's suicide bombers, and U.S. intelligence officials say these foreigners are forming tactical, ever-changing alliances with former Baathist fighters and other insurgents.

"The al-Qa'ida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq," the report says.

According to the NIC report, Iraq has joined the list of conflicts -- including the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate, and independence movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao in the Philippines, and southern Thailand -- that have deepened solidarity among Muslims and helped spread radical Islamic ideology.

At the same time, the report says that by 2020, al Qaeda "will be superseded" by other Islamic extremist groups that will merge with local separatist movements. Most terrorism experts say this is already well underway. The NIC says this kind of ever-morphing decentralized movement is much more difficult to uncover and defeat.

The report goes on to predict that a biological attack on U.S. soil is likely by 2020.

Just so we're clear: the President and his men have executed an unnecessary war which has created a power vacuum now filled by radical Islamist terrorists, all but printed recruiting posters for suicide bombers, gone a long way toward sacrificing our moral high ground, pushed our National Guard and Reserve to, and perhaps past, the breaking point, cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million per day and counting, sacrificed the lives of several thousand uniformed military members (American and foreign) and untold tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, wounded tens of thousands uniformed military members and Iraqi civilians, and diverted nearly the entirety of our security apparatus making us less able to respond to an attack at home. The only confirmed benefit of all of this activity is that Halliburton and others have been made very flush with cash and the President has had the opportunity to play dress-up on an aircraft carrier.

I know someone will send me an email noting that I didn't include a free, democratic Iraq and Iraqis free from oppression as among the benefits. It was deliberate, since neither of those benefits have been realized. Even if elections go forward at the end of this month, they'll more than likely not include the entire Sunni triangle and there's very little chance they'll be seen as legitimate. That's not democracy. As for the "freedom from oppression": you find me a quote of an Iraqi who says his or her life is better now than it was four years ago, and I"ll find you a quote from one who says it isn't. Saddam was an evil man who I fervently hope is brought to justice, not just out of his "spider hole," but he was, sadly, not the only human on the planet capable of oppression. Not even in Iraq.

It's also irrelevant, since we would never have assented to paying the price we've paid just to topple Saddam. The deal was a battle in the War on Terror - or, in case you're a stickler for making sense, the war on terrorism - which, even if it ever was that, we are losing.

D.C. Getting Burned for Bush's Party

This is ridiculous. As Jon Stewart asked last night on The Daily Show (thank you, TiVo!), maybe this has something to do with D.C. voting 9 to 1 for Kerry.

Let's see if I've got this straight: The Bush White House is planning to hold the most expensive presidential inauguration in U.S. history, in the midst of a war in Iraq and in the aftermath of a disaster that has the world in mourning, and the administration wants the District to help pay for the spectacle -- by diverting federal money from the city's homeland security budget, no less.

Surely, the Bush administration couldn't be that thoughtless. Could it?

"This administration is trying, belatedly, to tighten its financial belt," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), told me yesterday. "Having spent the country into a dangerous deficit through tax cuts for the wealthy and the invasion of another country, they're trying to pinch pennies wherever they can."

Just four years ago, this same George W. Bush managed to pay for his inauguration without picking the District's pocket, just as every other newly elected president had done for 200 years. Then again, that was before the nation's $2 trillion surplus disappeared.

The Bush administration even agreed to give the city $15 million a year for an emergency fund to help defray expenses associated with security alerts and national demonstrations. That was thoughtful.

Tell it, Courtland.

Facing the Pain

Facing the Pain

As Dr. Dean elbows his way up the DNC food chain, this interview should suggest to every gray haired, DNC elder that Dean does understand an essential problem with the current Democratic Party: it has lost its bottom-up, decentralized, organizing spirit. Even as Dean preaches the need for more party ownership and organizing, Democrats shouldn't embrace Dean without critically examining his record. Afterall, Dean's volunteer army of progressives, cynics, and young people imploded in Iowa because of its enormity. Another key aspect of Dean's Iowa debacle was the lack of discipline within his volunteer army. And it was one of Dean's key organizers who headed America Coming Together (which on paper looked great) but was really just a 527 version of Dean's "Perfect Storm."

Dean's right. The DNC needs to put more emphasis on building the grass roots of the Democratic Party. Whether Dean is that person remains to be seen. Should Dean become the next DNC chair two scenarios could develop. First, Dean could surround himself with Clinton and DCCC people who talk about building the party, but really just put a grass roots gloss on their methods while continuing to do more of the same. Second, Dean could surround himself with the same people who helped him lose Iowa, the Democratic Nomination, and ultimately assisted in Kerry's failed Presidential run. These folks have the big picture under control, but wrongly equate grass roots organizing with culling together people who are willing to go door to door for $50 a day.

In either case, the Democratic Party will be faced with more losing and soul searching.

Please welcome three new contributors to RIPPLE OF HOPE

We have recruited three new contributors to our team, each of whom brings a unique background and unique interests and expertise to our endeavor:

Paul Hernandez has over ten years of experience working on critical policy issues, and he currently is Manager of Public Affairs for The California Endowment, the state's largest nonprofit health foundation. When he gets a chance to pull away from the rubber chicken charity dinner circuit, Paul can be found trying to convince his wife Martha, why he needs to watch highlights of his beloved L.A. Lakers or U.C. Berkeley "Cal" Golden Bears on Sportscenter for the third time. (Read more about Paul here.)

Lucy Okumu is Legislative Advocate for the Los Angeles Unified School District and has extensive experience in education policy at the local and state level. Lucy’s family immigrated to the United States from Uganda when she was six years old.  Lucy's personal and professional goals to pursue justice, equity, and democracy for all are grounded in her mother's tireless activism against an oppressive dictatorship. (Read more about Lucy here.)

Angelo Williams is the Education Policy and Economic Development Consultant to California State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero. Before working for the majority leader, Angelo severed as Director of Legislation and Press Deputy to California State Assemblyman Carl Washington. Angelo (aka Uncle Lo Lo) is a guest lecturer and published author of comparative history and social anthropology. His nieces and nephews think he’s the funniest man alive. (Read more about Angelo here.)

On behalf of the other contributors and all of our readers and subscribers, welcome!

Amen to Traci, more on Gonzales

Traci is absolutely right. There was an op ed in the Times the other day that basically said when Gonzales gets confirmed, we'll all, as citizens, personally own torture. The only way to keep that from being the case is to raise a loud enough minority voice not to be morally culpable as a whole, and to be able to demonstrate to the rest of the world that we actively protested such a decision. I wrote to my Senators. Please write to yours.

In the mean time, there are some great pieces on this out today. My daily reading list includes the Post and Times, both of which have opinion and editorial pieces. Indeed, it's about 50% of the stuff on the Times' opinion page. Their editorial is a must-read, I think. Mr. Gonzales has made an admirable climb in life, but his testimony is an object-lesson in refusing to accept responsibility on this subject, and in refusing to denounce a practice that, come on, really, pretty much the whole civilized planet denounced decades ago. We must not accept this as a country. Rejecting torture, and any toleration of it, has to be fundamental to a democratic society.

Tiziana's right...but don't just read, do something

I have really appreciated Tiziana's numerous postings about the now-constant stream of articles about U.S. abuses of prisoners. I'm more of a domestic policy gal, and I need to be reminded sometimes that there are other things to keep my eye on. This is shameful and embarrassing and wrong, and we need to be insistent that this not get swept under the rug.

This morning I listened for a bit to the opening of the confirmation hearings for Alberto Gonzales, was reminded of Tiziana's exhortations on this subject, and planned to head home and post on this subject. She beat me to it, but left out one important note:

Don't just lament over what an awful message it would send to the world that our chief law enforcement officer thought the Geneva Conventions were "obsolete" (you can read here about a million pages of transcript from today's hearings). Let your senators know that you want them to oppose his nomination. You can go here to one of my favorite Web sites (other than this site, of course), congress.org, to easily send an e-mail or find a phone number or address, if you don't already have it. Don't just complain about it; make your voice heard.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Country We've Got

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: The Country We've Got

Tom Friedman's writings on the pending Iraqi elections have been incredibly helpful to me over the last few weeks. Do you remember back when Jon Stewart helped us all understand our ambivalence about the Iraq war when he said that those who couldn't celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein were lost to the ideological Left, and those who didn't feel at least a little bit wrong about the way the whole thing happened were lost to the ideological Right?

Well, Friedman has even more articulately laid out both why we must support elections in Iraq, now, and why we understandably feel so wrong and worried about it. The best piece he wrote by far on this was two weeks ago, but today's is terrifically helpful, I think, for folks like me, who just plain didn't know whether or not we should support elections on 30 January, or postponing those elections until later.

General Says Army Reserve Is Becoming a 'Broken' Force

This